Azrael Starfall's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The rabbit still sat between them. Azrael did not move, afraid the girl would run. She wiped dirt from her hands and watched his wings. "I don't even know your name," he said. "Verity," she answered at once. Then her mouth twisted, as if the word had escaped a cage. "I hate that I told you. I hate that I can't stop. I'm running from a wedding I never agreed to. The men who chase me are close. There. I've said it all." She pressed a hand to her lips. Azrael crouched to her level. "You always speak the truth," he said. "Even when it costs you." "I can't lie," Verity said. "Not once in my life. It's a curse." Tears sat in her eyes. "If they find me here, I'll be gone by nightfall. Married off. You'll never see me again." The rabbit's ears snapped up. Down the meadow, voices called. Boots crushed the tall grass. Azrael turned and saw them: four men in leather, blades at their hips, spreading through the flowers. He made his choice before he weighed the cost. "Take my hand." "Why should I trust you?" Verity asked. "I trust you. I don't know why. That frightens me most." He pulled her close and opened his wings. The men shouted and broke into a run. Azrael beat the air once, twice, and lifted them both off the ground. Verity gasped and clung to his neck. Below, the pursuers grabbed at empty air. He carried her up through cloud, higher than any mortal could climb. The meadow shrank to a green smudge. Ahead rose a temple of pale stone, its arches strung with rainbows, its spires wrapped in mist. No mortal hunter would ever reach it. He set her down on the marble steps. Verity stared at the glowing walls. Her legs shook. "They can't follow here," she said. "I'm safe. I'm also terrified. Both are true." Azrael reached into his coat and drew out a small gold locket. He pressed it into her palm. Inside it was hollow, empty, waiting. "This holds one secret," he said. "You can't lie, so you can't pretend a false one. Put your truest fear inside and close it. No one opens it but you." She understood. A gift a truth-teller could take without lying. Her fingers curled around the gold. "You saved me," she said. "And now I owe you my honesty forever. I don't mind that. I've never not minded anything before." Her pursuers were miles below, chasing nothing. Verity would not vanish tonight. But Azrael had carried a mortal into a holy place, and above them, past the rainbows, his own kind watched the gate he had abandoned. He had won her a night of safety. He had also shown heaven exactly where he had gone.